Category Archives: Comic Strip Characters

“Do you ever feel like a comic strip character?” This was the topic of conversation at a weekly dinner with some pals of mine last week.

“My secret self is Popeye; who are you?”

When I first approached this train of thought, I was alone at my desk, wondering what I wanted to write about and the thought crossed my mind about playing cops and robbers as a boy. Or Cowboys and Indians. Or Alley Oop.

So who am I when I make that first call to a prospect or when I answer a call from a troubled client or write up an order for my favorite customer?

What hat am I wearing when I ask a lady for a dinner date?

Is there a cape in my imaginary closet?

A sword?

A turned around collar?

A red Captain Marvel suit?

Our lives begin with affirmation.

By the time we are eighteen months old we have mastered the challenge of scientific observation and established our most basic methods of coping with fear. We know to act innocent or guilty, we are aggressive or pleasant, we push and we pull.

For the next couple of decades we will be creating our personas, aping lines from songs, the latest styles and speech patterns and our most private thoughts will be linked somehow to the need for approval either for protection from violence or for good vibrations as saluted by Mike Love in the sixties.

And if from all of this there emerges a goal for defining our true selves chances are we shall all benefit from this, including the servant.

I love the way he expresses himself.But did you hear what he was saying?

Interesting painting.Yes but do you like it?

She really stands out in a crowd.Yes, but have you met her?

He was a quiet one; yes he was; always looking for solutions, inventing a better way to get a desired result in less time or with an improvement of some sort. And then John met Cathy.

To bed and beyond, his moments of studious repose, now naught but a memoire, his lab rats mere pets and his need for intellectual stimulation limited to thirty ways to tie a knot in the silk appendage now dangling daily from the collar of his Saville Rowe shirt, John looked around the art gallery and vowed to change his name, arresting his quest for the old life. He would abandon all and become Rupert the Right.

Goodbye Cathy Dear, here; you may have this as a memoire. Unbuttoning his collar brought a sigh that became a gasp as his lungs inflated with the promise of freedom and new frontiers; “Here is my tie with the Windsor knot; the knot is naught but a naughty memoire. Keep it” he said. “hang it on the bed post” he added.” And Rupert nee John, once left, now right, went shopping.

He was a quiet one; yes he was; always alert to solutions to the many problems of a given day, an inventor on the lookout for a better way to get a desired result in less time; here a tweak, there a tweak, everywhere a tweak-tweak…

And then John met Cathy.

To bed and beyond, his moments of studious repose now naught but a memoire, his lab rats mere pets and his need for intellectual stimulation limited to thirty ways to tie a knot in the silk appendage now dangling daily from the collar of his Saville Rowe shirt, John looked around the art gallery and vowed to change his name, arresting his quest for the old life. He would abandon all and become Rupert the Right.

Goodbye Cathy Dear, here; you may have this as a memoire. Unbuttoning his collar brought a sigh that became a gasp as his lungs inflated with the promise of freedom and new frontiers; “Here is my tie with the Windsor knot; the knot is naught but a naughty memoire. Keep it” he said. “hang it on the bed post” he added.” And Rupert nee John, once left (now right) went shopping.

I love the way he expresses himself.But did you hear what he was saying?

Interesting painting.Yes but do you like it?

She really stands out in a crowd.Yes, but have you met her?

He was a quiet one; yes he was; always looking for solutions, inventing a better way to get a desired result in less time or with an improvement of some sort. And then John met Cathy.

To bed and beyond, his moments of studious repose, now naught but a memoire, his lab rats mere pets and his need for intellectual stimulation limited to thirty ways to tie a knot in the silk appendage now dangling daily from the collar of his Saville Rowe shirt, John looked around the art gallery and vowed to change his name, arresting his quest for the old life. He would abandon all and become Rupert the Right.

Goodbye Cathy Dear, here; you may have this as a memoire. Unbuttoning his collar brought a sigh that became a gasp as his lungs inflated with the promise of freedom and new frontiers; “Here is my tie with the Windsor knot; the knot is naught but a naughty memoire. Keep it” he said. “hang it on the bed post” he added.” And Rupert nee John, once left, now right, went shopping.